Folding wall beds are widely used, for example, in multi-purpose hotel rooms, efficiency apartments and housing units for the elderly, in order to make more efficient use of available floor space. In hotels, the use of wall beds allows rooms to be configured either as regular sleeping rooms or as conference rooms, by simply folding up the bed and bringing in a table, or perhaps folding out a compact folding table. The term folding wall bed, or simply wall bed, will be used in this patent application to include all such beds regardless of whether they fold adjacent a wall, to a recess formed in the wall, or into a cabinet formed in or positioned adjacent a wall. In any case folding wall beds typically have hinge mechanisms, counterbalance springs and the like connecting the bed frame to the floor or wall, generally adjacent the head portion of the bed. In some designs, headboards have been provided to at least partially cover the recess into which the bed folds and thereby to cover or hide the folding and counterbalancing mechanism, not only for aesthetic reasons but also to protect the occupants in the room from mechanical hinge parts which may be greasy and which may in some cases represent potential danger due to moving parts.
Although various types of folding headboards have been proposed in the prior art, in order to be successful from the point of view of ease of manufacture and installation and convenience in use, it is believed that a folding headboard should provide certain features and advantages. The headboard should not require a separate folding/unfolding sequence of steps over and above the steps for folding/unfolding the bed. Separate operations are inconvenient for the user, and might lead to the potential for damage to the mechanism, depending upon the specific design, in case the operator forgets to tend to the folding/unfolding of the headboard prior to the bed. Ideally, a headboard should substantially fully cover the recess which contains the hinge and folding mechanism for the bed, while at the same time providing a means for gaining access to the recess area for servicing the mechanism or for retrieving objects inadvertently dropped behind the bed. The headboard should also be simple in terms of the number and assembly of parts so as to avoid elaborate mechanisms with numerous actuators and parts which would increase the cost not only in terms of manufacturing, but also in terms of installation and adjustment at the time the bed is installed.